The origins and expansion of the Inca state

Inca origins and early history are shrouded in legends. The Inca paqarina (the hole in the ground from which they believed they emerged into the world) was located about 15 miles south of Cuzco. Under their first leader, Mano Capac, the Inca moved from village to village in search of enough fertile land to sustain themselves. Eventually, they arrived at the fertile area around Cuzco, where they established themselves.

After a while they began meddling in the affairs of their neighbours, forcing them to pay tribute in order to retain their freedom. From their early days they were an imperialistic people!

Land hunger

The demand for additional lands became more apparent during the reign of the fourth king, Mayta Capac. It is possible that rainfall began to diminish very slightly about this time throughout the central Andes. This placed some pressure on food resources, leading to competition and conflict between peoples in the region. For the Inca, this would have created a motive for acquiring more land and sources of water in neighbouring parts of the Cuzco Valley.

This is apparently what Mayta Capac did. Legend indicates that quarrels with a neighbouring group began because the Inca were taking water from them. The quarrel grew into a full-scale war, which the Inca won. They looted the homes of their enemies, took some of their lands, and probably imposed some sort of tribute on them, perhaps in labour.

The sixth emperor, Inca Roca, subjugated some groups that lived about 12 miles southeast of Cuzco. But legends suggest that the Inca were no more powerful than several other groups in the area at this time.

Yahuar Huacac, the seventh emperor, apparently spent most of his time in Cuzco. His brothers Vicaquirao (Wika-k’iraw) and Apo Mayta (’Apu Mayta) were able military leaders and incorporated lands south and east of Cuzco into the Inca domain. After Yahuar Huacac’s murder and some power struggles within the royal family, the elders chose Viracocha Inca as his successor.

Viracocha Inca

The Inca conquest began during the reign of Viracocha Inca in the early part of the 15th century. Up to this time, neighbouring ethnic groups were conquered and their lands taken, but no garrisons or Inca officials were placed among them. They were left undisturbed until the Inca felt it necessary to attack them again. This pattern of raiding and plundering changed during Viracocha Inca’s reign. He planned to establish permanent rule over these groups and was ably assisted by his uncles, Vicaquirao and Apo Mayta, who developed military tactics that made permanent conquest possible. These involved attacking enemies from two or more directions at once.

At first war of conquest was a relatively small-scale campaign, but made the Inca a political power in the Urubamba Valley, an important passageway between Cuzco and the Lake Titicaca Basin.

Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui

During the early 15th century a group called the Chanca was emerging as a political power in the area west of the Inca territory. Presumably, they too may have been feeling the effects of diminishing food resources and were trying to maintain their standard of living by acquiring land outside their home territory.

In about 1438 the Chanca attacked the Inca. Although the Inca inflicted heavy defeats on the Chanca, their state fell into civil war as Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui set himself on the throne in Cuzco in opposition to his father, Viracocha Inca, who had fled to Calca to escape the Chanca.

Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui therefore had to deal with two enemies at once—the Chanca and his father’s forces. The situation resolved itself when Viracocha died, soon after which the Inca were reunited under the rule of Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui.

Continuing struggles with the Chanca, and later with the powerful kingdom of Chimú, led to two major expeditions: one to conquer the peoples of the Titicaca Basin and protect the exposed southern flank, and the other to subdue the areas to the north. When the southern campaign was over, the Inca controlled all of the territory between Cuzco and the southern end of the lake basin. The northern expedition and its aftermath led to the conquests as far north as Quito (Ecuador), and then to the conquest of the Chimú state. The Inca sacked Chan Chian, probably the largest city in South America at that time, and then brought the whole coastal area of southern Ecuador and northern Peru under Inca control.

Administrative reforms

With the rapid expansion of their empire, the Inca found themselves as a minority within their own states, ruling over a much large number of subjects. This led Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, and his son Topa Inca Yupanqui, to strengthen the Inca core by bringing about several important changes. They rebuilt their capital, Cuzco, and upgraded its defences; and they invested in a massive project to raise the agricultural productivity of the city’s hinterland in the Cuzco Valley. This involved channelling rivers, levelling the valley, and terracing the hillsides. While the work was being completed, the original inhabitants of the affected parts of the valley were relocated to other areas for several years.

They also strengthened the social cohesiveness of the Inca ruling group by ensuring that all the Inca had access to enough land to support themselves and fulfil their social and political obligations properly. At the same time they began the policy of forced resettlement of conquered peoples (mitma). (For more on both these policies, see below, Social and Political structures).

Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui also invented a new, universal religion based on the worship of a creator-god called Viracocha, and propagated the idea that the Inca had a divine mission to take it to other peoples. Conquered groups did not have to give up their own religious beliefs; they merely had to worship this Inca god and provide him and his servants with food, land, and labour. This religion thus became a potentially powerful force in bolstering Inca power throughout the empire.

Topa Inca Yupanqui

About 1471, Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui abdicated in favour of his son Topa Inca Yupanqui, thereby ensuring the peaceful succession to the throne.

Topa Inca Yupanqui was a great conqueror who was to bring most of the Central Andes region under Inca rule.

His first military campaign, while not particularly successful, established diplomatic and trading relations with people of he nearby rain forests to the east of the Andes mountains.

His next campaign was to put down a revolt in the Titicaca Basin. He then turned southward, conquering all of highland Bolivia, northern Chile, and most of northwestern Argentina. He set the boundary markers of the Inca empire at the Maule River in central Chile.

At this point, the southern coast of Peru still had not been incorporated into the Inca state. In about 1476 Topa Inca Yupanqui therefore began bringing this region under his rule, valley by valley.

During the remainder of his reign, Topa Inca Yupanqui spent much of his time traveling throughout his territories, establishing local administrations (see below, Social and political structures).

Huayna Capac

After a tense succession, Huayna Capac’s reign was mostly peaceful; he devoted much of his time to traveling, administering the empire, and suppressing small-scale revolts. He did however extend the empire by conquering parts of mountainous country in northeastern Peru, and later northern Ecuador. During these campaigns, he pushed the frontiers of the Inca empire to the present-day boundary between Ecuador and Colombia. During a campaign in northern Ecuador to wipe out isolated pockets of resistance, he learned that an epidemic was sweeping Cuzco and the surrounding countryside. This news heralded the events which led to the fall of the Inca empire.

Inca culture at the time of the conquest

Social and political structure

The Inca

The Inca called their realm “Tawantinsuyu”. They apparently considered the term “Inca” applied only to members of the twelve royal clans who were the descendants of one or other of their twelve kings. Some of the early kings were more or less legendary figures, so the term “Inca” did not necessarily imply close blood relationship. Nevertheless, these true Inca made up a comparatively small group who formed a privileged elite at the top of Inca society.

Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui had decreed that all the property of a dead ruler must pass to all his descendants except the new ruler or his children. This rule ensured that these lineage groups could have access to lands and labourers from which they could support themselves. As for the new ruler, he had to acquire new estates for his descendants to ensure that they also could adequately support themselves.

The purpose of this measure was probably to minimise struggle for resources between the descent groups, which endangered the position of the Inca ruling elite as a whole in relation to the increasing number of subject peoples.

Each of the descent groups formed its own corporation which owned and managed estates in the area around Cuzco and scattered throughout the empire. They also maintained the ceremonies in honour of their dead ancestor, and performed other obligations to the state.

In addition to these descent groups, conquered groups could be incorporated into the ruling elite by being given the status of “Inca”. This privilege was apparently conferred on many of the inhabitants of the Cuzco basin who were conquered early on in the expansion of the Inca state.

The subject peoples

On the bases of the evidence in some Spanish sources, all of the conquered peoples were grouped into units of 100, 500, 1,000, 5,000, and 10,000 households. These formed the basis for labour duties and military conscription.

To what extent this actually reflected the situation on the ground is not known. Other sources suggest that conquered chiefs and headmen were kept in their positions of authority, so long as they fulfilled their obligations to their Inca lords. This mainly involved ensuring that their people were available to work on the Inca’s public projects and to fight in the Inca’s wars.

It is possible to reconcile the two strands of evidence if one is not dogmatic on exact numbers. A village (or ayllu, the basic social unit , a kin-group which held land communally) might have been designated a “hundred”, much like “hundreds” in Anglo-Saxon England, which represented a division of a county rather than an exact number of households. Similarly “500” might have been applied to a small district, and so on up to the “10,000” households of a tribe. All these groupings may have remained under pre-Inca lords of varying degrees of power, or their descendants. There is evidence of chiefs leading contingents of their tribesmen within the larger Inca armies, sometimes fighting hundreds or even thousands miles away from their homelands.

Forced resettlement

The Inca rulers routinely imposed a policy of forced resettled on their conquered peoples (mitma). The aim of this was primarily to ensure their loyalty to the Inca state; but a subsidiary aim was to enable a better use of land (at least so far as the Inca were concerned).

The policy involved moving some members of a conquered people from their homeland to a distant province. In their place, settlers from loyal districts would be brought in as colonists. In doing this, the conquered people were dispersed over different parts of the empire, and so made it difficult for the inhabitants of an area, composed of different ethnic groups, to revolt successfully.

Conscript labour

The Inca did not collect tribute from their conquered subjects in the form of money (there wasn’t any in Andean society) or in kind. Instead, they demanded labour from them, through the mit’a system. In this, their traditional leaders organized the people in fulfilling their obligations.

The Inca put the labour thus provided to a whole range of tasks. A major undertaking was aimed at feeding those segments of the population who were not engaged in food production – rulers, nobles, officials, priests, soldiers, craftsmen and so on.

Peasants were required to work in rotation on large state- or temple-owned estates. They were marched from their homelands to the lands where the state wanted them to work, and later marched back again. This sounds like a wasteful policy, but in a society lacking in established market centres this was perhaps the only way to mobilize such labour on a grand scale.

Other work involved digging irrigation channels, constructing terraces, laying roads, building suspension bridges, carrying loads along highways, working in the state mines or fighting in the Inca army.

Each province was also required to provide Chosen Women to serve as temple attendants in Inca shrines, or to become the brides of soldiers who had distinguished themselves in combat.

The mit’a system of forced labour allowed the Inca to engage in impressive projects. We noted above how Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui undertook a vast reclamation project in which rivers were channeled, the valley floor was levelled, and agricultural terraces were built on surrounding hillsides. Other large-scale projects of this type were undertaken in other parts of the Inca empire, and the Inca were able to construct an impressive road network which spanned their entire empire.

Inca religion

The Inca religion had its roots in pre-Inca times, and was influenced by contemporary Andean cultures. As such, it was polytheistic, worshipping a number of major gods and a a vast range of minor gods.

The Sun god, Inti, was the chief of the gods in the Inca pantheon. He was also considered the divine ancestor of the Inca. His wife was Mama Quilla (Mama-Kilya), the Moon Mother.

Another leading god was Apu Illapu, the rain giver. In times of drought, pilgrimages were made to his shrines, where sacrifices – often human – were made.

However, it was Viracocha who functioned as the special deity of the Inca, at least since the days of Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui.

Viracocha was the creator god and culture hero (he had taught people various techniques and skills), who had been worshipped in pre-Inca times but who, under the Inca, was especially venerated. Indeed, the Inca seem to have felt that they had a divine mission to establish his cult amongst other peoples, and the Inca armies conquered in the name of the creator god. Priests were appointed and temples were built throughout the empire. Conquered groups did not have to give up their own religious beliefs, but they had to incorporate the worship of Viracocha into their religion and provide his temples and priests with land and labourers.

Temples and shrines

Despite the Inca’s special devotion to Viracocha, it was the Sun god, Inti, who remained the chief of the gods. The Temple to the Sun in Cuzco was the best-known and most magnificent of all the Inca temples. It had a circumference of more than 1,200 feet and was built of beautifully cut stone. Within the temple was huge image of the Sun.

Other well-known temples were at Vilcashuman, which was regarded as the geographic centre of the empire; and near Mount Aconcagua in Argentina (the highest mountain in South America), at the southern limit of the Inca empire. On Titicaca Island, in Lake Titicaca, there was another famous temple of the sun.

As the Inca conquered new territories, temples were erected in the new lands. In Caranqui, Ecuador, for example, one such temple was described by a Spanish chronicler as being “filled with great vessels of gold and silver”.

Along with the shrines and temples, huacas (sacred sites) were widespread. These could be a man-made temple, a mountain, a river, or even a bridge. A huaca might also be a mummy, especially if it was that of a famous Inca lord.

Priests resided at all important shrines and temples. The chief priest in Cuzco was of noble lineage, and held his post for life. He enjoyed authority on a par with that of the Inca emperor himself, and controlled all the shrines and temples in the empire, along with their priests.

Sacrifice

Sacrifice was offered on a daily basis: for example, the ritual of the Sun’s appearance; and great public sacrifices were offered on festival days and on important occasions, such as a new king’s accession to the throne. Every month of the year had its own festival, and these were important occasions for sacrifice.

Sacrifices commonly offered were animals such as guinea pigs and llamas, and valued plants such as coca leaves and chicha (an intoxicant). Humans also were sacrificed, when the need was extreme. Defeats, drought and disease all called for human blood. When a new Inca ruler assumed the throne, 200 children would be killed. Chosen Women from the Sun Temple might be sacrificed. Sacrificed persons must be without blemish.

Many people destined for sacrifice were chosen from the conquered provinces as part of the regular imposition.

Divination

Nothing of importance was undertaken, no decisions made, without recourse to divination. It was also used to diagnose diseases, and to determine guilt in crimes.

Divination was undertaken by watching the meanderings of spiders and the pattern of coca leaves in a dish; by drinking ayahuasca, a psychedelic drink; by studying the lungs of a sacrificed white llama; and by other means. Divination was conducted within the context of sacred ritual; and indeed the whole of Inca religion was bound up in complex ceremonial. If disaster struck, it was believed that there had been a failure to observe the strict rules by which ceremonies were governed.

Inca technology

As the Inca empire expanded, it brought more and more peoples of many different environments and cultures into contact with each other. Techniques originating in any particular ethnic group were able to spread across a wide area.

Communicating and storing information

There was no system of writing, like those which emerged in Euroasia, or indeed in Mesoamerica. This prompts the question, how was long-distance communication achieved?

One answer must surely be the accurate oral transmission of messages. This, however, would have been an inefficient means of storing information, and for here we have to look at the use of fibre technology.

The Inca officials who managed the complex mit’a system (see above) used quipu to record labour service obligations. These were strings on which were tied complex sequences of knots which represented different numbers and “words”. These could record quantitive information very effectively, but were also apparently used for qualitative information as well.

Woven textiles were also used for calendars and ceremonial accounting.

Roads and bridges

One of the best-known features of the Inca empire was its remarkable road system; it amounted to over 15,500 miles in length.

The network was based on two parallel highways, one in the highlands and the other on the coast. Some of the roads dated to before Inca times, but the Inca greatly extended the network and unified it into a single system. The road traversed the most challenging terrains, especially in the mountain regions, and perhaps their most striking features were the rope suspension bridges crossing the steep gorges which punctuated the highlands. Some of these are still in use, maintained on a regular basis by local villages.

The roads had two purposes as far as the Inca rulers were concerned. Firstly, they enabled messages to travel quickly over hundreds of miles, so that the emperor could keep in contact with his commanders and officials in different parts of the empire. The Inca rulers maintained teams of runners who were trained to remember and pass on messages; or perhaps to carry quipu records.

Secondly, troops could march speedily along them to deal with military crises as they occurred.

Way stations were located at a day’s travel interval along the highways. These had rest houses, warehouses and barracks. The maintenance of a length of highway, plus keeping the warehouses fully stored, was the responsibility of the local communities undertaking their mit’a service.

Textiles and metals

Fibre of various kinds was used as the basis for a wide range of items, including in record keeping (quipu) and suspension bridges (see above). The main use for fibre, though, was in textiles.

In the highlands very few example of textiles from Pre-Columbian times have been preserved because of the humidity, but on the coastal desert many burial cloths from widely different periods have been located and studied. Museums throughout the world have numerous examples of such cloths, which reveal the great beauty and sophistication which Inca craftsmen and their predecessors could achieve.

The Inca state maintained major weaving centres, one of which, on the northeastern shore of Lake Titicaca, was said to have employed a thousand workers. Government centres along the Inca highway housed groups of women weavers.

Before Inca times, metals – gold, silver, copper, and their alloys—were used mainly for ornamentation. Under the Inca, bronze tools, including crowbars, chisels, axes, knives, and clubheads, became widespread after the Inca conquest.